


Reclaiming the Word

by j_s_cavalcante



Category: due South
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_s_cavalcante/pseuds/j_s_cavalcante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For DS Match 2008, this "Reality Bomb" was delivered to green_grrl on her LJ. The piece was in two parts, one attached to a virtual pair of dork glasses, the other attached to a virtual cup of coffee.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Reclaiming the Word

**Author's Note:**

  * For [green_grrl](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=green_grrl).



> For DS Match 2008, this "Reality Bomb" was delivered to green_grrl on her LJ. The piece was in two parts, one attached to a virtual pair of dork glasses, the other attached to a virtual cup of coffee.

The streetlamp haloed Ray in an otherworldly light, picking out glints of gold and bronze in the unruly spikes of his hair. Whimsical thoughts sprang to Fraser’s mind, wanting expression: magickal, eldritch, faerie. The words hovered on his lips.

 

Ray turned, and for a moment his halo seemed to shimmer into a million colors, surrounding his whole figure like an enchanted rainbow cloak.

 

Fraser stood entranced, though he knew the effect was simply a trick of the light: extra moisture present on his eyelashes, forming miniature prisms which split the light into its rainbow components.

 

The extra moisture probably was there because he’d looked up into the streetlight in the first place, or perhaps it was a result of the rank Chicago air. Fraser still found it difficult to tolerate the smog, some nights, especially nights like this one, with fog hanging heavy in the air, and the exhaust of automobiles caught in it.

 

There were many atmospheric effects which could produce that eldritch light, that faerie glow…

 

Ray took a step closer to Fraser, and the vision shattered. A second step, and his face and hair were now lit more naturally by that same streetlamp, as indeed they should be.

 

Ray scratched at his neck; Fraser heard the rasp of three days’ growth of beard. He could see the scuffs on Ray’s leather jacket—no rainbow cloak, after all. Ray’s hair was no longer brightly lit, but even at two paces, Fraser could see where the bleached portions gave way to the new growth, which was neither gold nor bronze nor even truly blond, but mouse-brown, ordinary.

 

Human.

 

Not Faerie.

 

Fraser could see the lines in Ray’s face: the worry lines in his brow, the mark of years of unwise sun exposure in his angular cheeks. He was a year younger than Fraser, and he looked older—no ancient, immortal faerie prince after all. His left eye was slightly bloodshot, as it tended to be when Ray was tired, the result of an old injury. Fraser watched as Ray’s eyes blinked, slowly. Knowingly.

 

He’d heard him. Oh, dear.

 

Ray barked out a laugh, one short, sharp sound. “I ain’t that kind of fairy, Fraser.”

 

Fraser felt his face heat. It was clearly time to stop woolgathering and get moving toward home. It was late, the stakeout was over, and Ray was tired. Reality must trump whimsy, after all, no matter how much Fraser might, from time to time, wish otherwise.

 

And his reality, he had to admit, was very, very good. He smiled at his partner. “Oh, I know, Ray. I’m quite happy with the kind of fairy you are.”

 

Ray laughed outright, then, a joyful sound, and years seemed to disappear from his face. It was a beautiful thing to see, and the fact that there was no magic involved made it even better.

 

“You know you’re the only one I let call me that, don’t you?”

 

“I feel very privileged,” Fraser said.

 

Ray took the last two paces swiftly and clapped a hand around Fraser’s shoulders, propelling him toward the curb where they’d left the GTO. Just before he put the key to the lock on the passenger’s side, he lowered his voice and said, “Yeah, well, you should, you big homo.”

 

He cackled all the way to the driver’s side door.

 

Inside the car, Fraser waited till Ray had started the engine, then he said, “Ray, I hardly think slurs are called for.”

 

“If the shoe fits, Benton,” Ray said, still snickering. But after he engaged the gear, he dropped his right hand onto Fraser’s knee.

 

Fraser’s hand went unerringly to Ray’s, drawn by a force no more—nor no less—magical than honest love. He squeezed Ray’s hand once, then let it go. They were in a public place, after all, though it was late, and there were few people about on this street.

 

“Understood,” he said quietly. Ray’s irreverence was a sign of trust, and in fact was a sign of how much he really did care.

 

It was a code between them, the reclaiming of a word once used for evil, now a term that held no sting and no shame.

 

“Fag,” Ray said, pushing his luck.

 

A change of tactics was obviously called for; Ray knew two dozen synonyms, if not more, and Fraser had no desire to hear the cruder ones.

 

That did not mean he had no desire. He licked his lips.

 

“Whoa.” His smile vanished, Ray pulled the car away from the curb rather hurriedly, glancing in his mirrors and over his shoulder, then at the road ahead, looking at everything but Fraser.

 

“You do that again, I’m gonna out you to the world right here,” Ray murmured. “In that way where I’ll have to arrest myself for public indecency. My apartment?”

 

“Agreed.”

 

“Good. Great. Okay.” And he accelerated abruptly, no doubt leaving a thin patch of rubber behind on the asphalt.

 

Fraser couldn’t resist, though, as he stared straight ahead at the road, knowing Ray was staring straight ahead as well, trying to maintain his composure.

 

“Fairy,” Fraser said.

 

“Damn right,” Ray said, still not looking at him.

 

“Well, good,” Fraser said.

 

“Damn good,” Ray said.

 

And they were.


End file.
